“Segregation not only harms one physically but injures them
spiritually. It scars the soul. It is a system which forever stares the
segregated in the face saying ‘You are less. You are not equal to.’” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Jim Crow Laws was a form of racial
caste system in America that existed from 1877 to 1965. The laws segregated the blacks from society
forced a lesser race ideology. The
history of Jim Crow began years before the laws were actually put in place in
1877. Before the Civil War, there were
not segregation laws in place because society did not need them. There
were laws in place against freed slaves at that time, however this only
impacted where they can be employed, but the extent of the laws did not become
strict until after 1877. Slaves were
able to work side-by-side with whites as long as they were subservient. The idea of Jim Crow was from the 1830’s
minstrel skit by Thomas Dartmouth, AKA “Daddy Rice”. The skit consisted of Dartmouth dressing up
as a black, disabled slave. He used
African American Vernacular English and was in black face, where he would sing
a song that was racially offensive.
After the Emancipation Proclamation
was signed on January 1, 1863, the Reconstruction Era began in the United
States of America. Many African-American
slaves were freed, and society moved forward with making these freed slaves U.S
citizens. Laws were put in place to
protect these freedoms, and at this time black men could vote, serve in juries
and run for office. Because there were
no laws that separated schools at this time, schools were fully
integrated. Laws were in place to
protect the citizenship and rights of African Americans, however eventually
these rights would slowly be taken away.
Beginning in the 1870’s, southern democrats slowly began to take control
of the southern legislature. They pushed
a white supremacist ideology. White
supremacist groups such as the white league and the red coats tried to
intimidate from voting and ran republicans out of town. By 1877, white democrats gained control of
almost every southern state, who legislated laws known of Jim Crow Laws, which
officially began the Jim Crow era.
In the early 1880’s, black people
were still on office, however from the 1880’s through the early 1910’s, laws
were put in place to suppress black voters even further. The democrats of the south passed laws that
restricted who could vote, by implementing a voting tax, as well as literacy
and comprehensive tests. These tests
were very extensive, and impossible to pass.
This reduced the number of black voters in southern states
drastically. White people living in
poverty were also reduced, however they were eligible for a grandfather clause
to keep their right to vote, while black people did not. The statistics showed that around the south,
blacks were suppressed from voting, and in Louisiana in 1910, only 0.5% of
black men were registered to vote at that time.
Those who were registered to vote were threatened, beat and often times
murdered in order to keep them from voting.
Clip from Selma (2015)
The laws that were put in place
were solely for the purpose of keeping the races separated. These laws limited intermarriage, integration
of schools, bathrooms, restaurants, hospitals and other common areas. The laws varied form state to state, other
states having stricter laws than others.
The penalty for these laws also ranged from state to state, while most
were viewed as a misdemeanor.
The Jim Crow Laws were in place from 1877-1965. In 1955, the Montgomery Bus Protest was a
protest started by the arrest of Rosa Parks. The outrage of this incident led
to a massive boycott, which ultimately ended in the integration of the
buses. It also inspired other civil
rights groups to fight to reverse some of the segregated laws. Eventually in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson
signed the Civil Rights act of 1964, which ended public discrimination and
segregation. In 1965 the Voting Rights
Act of 1965 ended barriers to voting for federal, state and local elections,
marking the end of the Jim Crow era after 88 years.
Although
Jim Crow is officially reversed in these southern states, a systematic racial
system is still in place affected many African Americans in the United States,
particularly African American men. The
term New Jim Crow was a term coined by legal scholar and civil rights attorney
Michelle Alexander in her book The New
Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. In her book, she discusses how the war on
drugs and mass incarceration is a tool used to racially control society, and
continues the ability to practice racial discrimination in the United
States. It is a reminder that although
Jim Crow has ended, the ideology has not died, and there is still a strong
prejudice that is still relevant in our country.
Sources:
•Lasner, Lynn
Fabian. “Fighting Jim Crow.” Humanities, vol. 23, no
5. October 2002.
•“Reconstruction
and the Rise of Jim Crow.” The African-American Experience, Primary
Source Media, 1999. American Journey.
•Packard, Jerrald M. American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow. New York: St Martin’s Press. 2002. Ebsco.
•Cook-lynn,
Elizabeth. “Mass Incarceration is the
new Racism.” Diversity Studies collection.
•http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/links/misclink/examples/homepage.htm
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